If you ever wondered what journaling is all about, why people recommend it, what the benefits are, and how to do it, this here is for you.
After coming across many references about journaling in books that I read, I got just as curious about it, as you are probably right now, I will share many tips with you that I found in those books and as always I will give you the quote of the day the end.
What is Journaling?
So what is journaling?
Here’s an official definition I found online:
“Journaling is a personal record of experiences and Reflections kept regularly. “
Web MD says:
“Journaling is the act of keeping a record of your thoughts, feelings, insights, and more it can be written drawn, or typed, it can be on paper or on your computer.”
So, anything that you bring to paper or a computer regarding your life, what happened, what might happen, or how you feel about it… This is all journaling.
There are no strict guidelines or rules about how to do it. There’s no specific form, no specific length. Any writing practice you find suitable for yourself can be regarded as journaling.
Some people just start scribbling down some thoughts; others answer a specific set of questions, and I will give you some ideas later for that.
The important thing is that a journal is not supposed to be read by other people or even yourself again in the future.
Even though, of course, you can reread it (there are no rules against that, haha), it is solely to express your thoughts and feelings at that very moment.
And we will talk about why that is such an important part of it later.
Even though it is something very personal, the arguably most famous journal is publicly available and read by millions of people every year. It is Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations”.
So even the most famous emperor of the Roman Empire and the most powerful person at that time was journaling.
But also other people like Leonardo, DaVinci, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, and Marie Curie, among many others.
And of course, also the people that I will talk about here, all have or had a regular journaling practice.
So let’s talk about why you should too.
The Benefits of Journaling
What are the benefits, and why should you do it after all?
You hit everywhere in the self-development community, and that is for a good reason.
There’s a nice quote that I read.
“Journaling is like whispering to oneself and listening at the same time.”
Mina Muray, Dracula
Studies show that there are a wide variety of benefits, such as decreased anxiety and feelings of depression. It’s said to be as effective as cognitive behavioral therapy to gain mental clarity. It is also especially helpful to deal with devastating events in your life and is said to have a similar impact as seeing a therapist or meditation.
Eric Jorgenson collects in his book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”, Naval’s most popular posts and writes:
“Meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself.
“The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” by Eric Jorgenson
It only “works” when done for its own sake.
Hiking is walking meditation.
Journaling is writing meditation.
Praying is gratitude meditation.
Showering is accidental meditation.
Sitting quietly is direct meditation.”
Then there’s also Ethan Kross writes in his 2021 published book “Chatter” about the findings of psychologist James Pennebaker:
“Over the” course of a long and distinguished career, he has shown that simply asking people to write about their most upsetting negative experiences for fifteen to twenty minutes—to create a narrative about what happened, if you will—leads them to feel better, visit the doctor less, and have healthier immune function. By focusing on our experiences from the perspective of a narrator who has to create a story, journaling creates distance from our experience. We feel less tied to it.”
“Chatter” by Ethan Kross
So one of the most important aspects of journaling is to create distance between your thoughts and feelings. You disconnect from them. And that, in a way, just as you do in the before mentioned examples of talking to a therapist or classic meditation.
You learn that the thoughts that come into your mind are not YOU. Those are just thoughts to come all the time. You can decide which thoughts to follow and which ones to let go of.
When you have a journaling exercise, it’s kind of the same practice to learn to get your thoughts out and disconnect from them. It’s just like when a friend of yours comes and asks for your advice, it’s often easier to advise the friend than it would be to give it to yourself because you have a distance to the experience of your friends. So it’s easier for you to give them good advice.
But it’s much harder when you are in the situation yourself.
In his book, Ethan Kross elaborates on the benefits and different techniques to get this distance between yourself and certain experiences or your emotions:
[…] expressive writing is an effective means of gaining helpful emotional distance.
“Chatter” by Ethan Kross
I came across more mentions of journaling and other books. Like, for example, the self-help classic “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod. He describes his favorite benefits of keeping a journal.
He says that it’s about:
- Gaining Clarity – writing something down forces you to think through it enough to understand it
- Capturing Ideas – also helps you to expand your ideas
- Reviewing Lessons – of that day or lessons you wrote in your journal in the past
- Acknowledging Progress – when you go through past entries, see how much progress you’ve made
Then there’s also David H. Wagner with his book “Backbone“. He writes:
“Don’t skip out on the journaling. When you put it in writing you’re going to uncover some stuff about yourself that you won’t discover just by thinking about it.”
“Backbone” by David H. Wagner
The entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss shows in his book “Tools of Titans“, what his journaling practice looks like, and we will talk about this in a little bit.
But first, he writes about his morning Pages, as he calls them. He uses the term “spiritual windshield wipers”, a term that he borrowed from a book I haven’t read it myself yet. It’s called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.
Tim Ferriss writes:
“If you want to be wealthy—as measured in money, time, relationships, ease of sleep, or otherwise—“spiritual windshield wipers” will help you get there with fewer accidents and less headache.”
Tim Ferriss in “Tools of Titans”
He writes later on that:
“Morning pages don’t need to solve your problems. They simply need to get them out of your head, where they’ll otherwise bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.
Tim Ferriss in “Tools of Titans”
Could bitching and moaning on paper for 5 minutes each morning change your life?
As crazy as it seems, I believe the answer is yes.”
So I think all those mentioned benefits should give you some inspiration, to give it a try for a little while and write in a journal.
Now, the question is, how to do this? What’s the best way? The easiest? And what should you try to do?
How to Journal?
As mentioned before, there are no rules to follow. There are many different types of journaling such as gratitude journaling, bullet journaling, creative journaling, and many more. They’re always new types or new words that get thrown around.
Since there are no rules about what a journal has to look like, there is no fixed number of different kinds.
It is up to you and what works for you.
But since it might be a bit difficult for you to sit in front of a blank page and just write, I want to share with If you some of the types of journaling that I found interesting when I read about them in different books.
Goal-orientated Journaling
So, for example, we have goal-orientated journaling.
There’s the author, Aubrey Marcus, who writes in his book “Own the Day, Own Your Life” about his goal-orientated writing routine:
“First you want to make sure you set your mission and objective for the following day. Then you want to purge anything you no longer want to carry, and memorialize those things you don’t want to forget but also don’t want to burden your psyche with.”
Aubrey Marcus in “Own the Day, Own Your Life”
Goal-orientated journaling also plays a big role in what you come across in “Personality Isn’t Permanent” by Benjamin Hardy. He writes that:
“Many people think “journaling” is about documenting the past. It can be. But envisioning and strategizing the future will internalize and clarify your goal.”
Benjamin Hardy in “Personality Isn’t Permanent”
So every month Benjamin Hardy asks himself the following set of questions, to formulate goals for the upcoming month.
- Where am I now? (blend out distractions and to make clear, where am I on my journey?)
- What were the wins from the past 90 days? (for a sense of movement and momentum; the hardest part is to get started but when you see you are not stagnating and moving forward, it will help to keep you going
- What are the wins I want from the next 90 days? (specific smaller goals for the immediate future)
- Where do I want to be in three years? (for the big picture; to stay on course)
- Where do I want to be in one year? (still a bigger picture, but much more achievable and a bit more clear than the further away three years)
From there, he formulates specific goals. He also says, before you begin writing that day, review your goals. This activates the mindset and circumstances of your future self. So that when you begin writing in a journal, you will think of your future self from their vantage point, and perspective.
Mr. Hardy thinks that the necessary steps you should take will become more obvious that way.
And by the way, he also says that it’s totally fine and expected that your plans would adjust and maybe change over time.
Gratitude Journaling
Another very popular type of journaling that I came across quite a few times is gratitude journaling.
Benjamin Hardy says that there’s one crucial thing you want to do properly, to get yourself in the right mindset, and that is starting your writing from a place of gratitude and abundance.
He writes in his book:
“The effects of gratitude journaling are well documented. Research has shown that gratitude consistently improves people’s emotional well-being. The regular practice of writing and reframing through gratitude can transform depression, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. Gratitude has been found to heal and transform relationships. In almost every way imaginable, gratitude has been found to help.”
Benjamin Hardy in “Personality isn’t Permanent”
He goes on by writing:
“New studies [..] are showing that gratitude journaling not only affects emotional well-being, but can also improve the biomarkers of legitimate health risks such as heart failure.”
Benjamin Hardy in “Personality isn’t Permanent”
So what Benjamin Hardy is doing here by going through those questions is very similar to what Tim Ferriss is doing in his journaling exercise.
In “Tools of Titans“, he writes that for him, it’s not a dear diary situation. He asks himself certain questions every day. This type of journaling is called the “Five-Minute-Journal”, because he only spends about five minutes every morning and every evening, answering the following prompts:
To be answered in the morning:
I am grateful for…
1) _____ 2) _____ 3) _____What would make today great?
1) _____ 2) _____ 3) _____Daily affirmations. I am…
1) _____ 2) _____ 3) _____To be filled in at night:
3 amazing things that happened today…
1) _____ 2) _____ 3) _____How could I have made today better?
Tim Ferriss in “Tools of Titans”
1) _____ 2) _____ 3) _____
For what to write when it comes to gratitude, Tim Ferris has a few tips as well.
It can be a relationship, opportunities that you had the day, something great that happened recently, or even something that you can see right now. Anything that makes your life easier or makes you happier in the moment.
When you think about it, it really can be anything. Just keep it simple to make it too complicated.
Junk Journaling
Brianna West is talking about yet another, Journaling practice in her great book “101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think“. Here she writes:
“Buy a notebook that is exclusively for junk journaling, which is what you’re going to do whenever you feel pretzeled up inside. Write down whatever comes out—whatever gruesome, awful, self-hating, embarrassing thoughts come up, let them out. Once you do this a few times, you’ll believe me when I say this will release them.”
Brianna West in “101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think”
No matter what it is that you write down, the important thing is to show up and do it. Bring something to paper, really anything.
Greg McKeown writes his book “Essentialism“:
“Think of a journal as like a storage device for backing up our brain’s faulty hard drive. As someone once said to me, the faintest pencil is better than the strongest memory.”
Greg McKeown in “Essentialism”
He goes on by writing:
“For the last ten years now I have kept a journal, using a counterintuitive yet effective method. It is simply this: I write less than I feel like writing. Typically, when people start to keep a journal they write pages the first day. Then by the second day the prospect of writing so much is daunting, and they procrastinate or abandon the exercise. So apply the principle of “less but better” to your journal. Restrain yourself from writing more until daily journaling has become a habit.”
Greg McKeown in “Essentialism”
And this reminded me of James Clear’s “Atomic Habits“. In this book, one of the main messages was to make your habits as tiny as possible, so you make sure to stick to them.
Think of it like this:
Don’t say “Oh, I want to make it a habit to write one page everyday”. This is too much. It’s very likely that one day, you won’t feel like it. One day, you will be busy, something else is coming up, life intervenes.
So make it a habit instead of writing three lines or even just one. As ridiculous as it sounds, but say that this is your habit and once you start writing, you will probably keep going for a bit.
But even if you just write one sentence, it would be okay. Most of the time time though, you will write more than one sentence. Again, it’s just about getting started. That’s the hard part. Showing up.
And with this strategy, you make sure that you will show up.
Greg McKeown also has a good tip for us about something you could do just once a month.
He writes:
“I also suggest that once every ninety days or so you take an hour to read your journal entries from that period. But don’t be overly focused on the details. […] Instead, focus on the broader patterns or trends. Capture the headline. Look for the lead in your day, your week, your life. Small, incremental changes are hard to see in the moment but over time can have a huge cumulative effect.”
Greg McKeown in “Essentialism”
So, now, the only question left to answer is when and where to journal.
When and where to Journal
Obviously, for most people it makes a lot of sense that you write in your journal in the evening, after day is done. Reminiscence and evaluate, If you lived true to your values and your goals.
This is very similar to what the stoics did, like the earlier mentioned Marcus Aurelius. But further tips from “Personality Isn’t Permanent” by Benjamin Hardy are:
- create a distraction-free environment where you can think freely and without notifications going off; leave your smartphone away from your body or on airplane mode
- meditating or praying before writing
- review your vision or your goals
- writing about things you’re grateful for, past, present and future
- although it doesn’t matter what time of day to journal, just before, or just after sleep are optimal, as your subconsciousness is most susceptible to influence due to the slow state of your brain waves during these times
- when writing, be mindful of your environment, and how it is influencing your thoughts and emotions; ideally, have a designated space for journaling, visualization, and future pacing
I hope you have a good overview of journaling now. Why you should do it, what the benefits are, how to do it, and I hope you feel motivated.
Now, just give it a try. Write down a few lines on the paper, or if you already have a little book like a journal or something, use that.
Make it a practice. Make it a habit. Even if just for a few days. Maybe it will turn into a couple of weeks, maybe a month two…
Write down a couple of lines to make the habit tiny, so it’s very likely you will stick to it and just see what happens.
Tell me in the comments what your journaling practice looks like, if you gave it a try already, or if you want to give it a try.
Also let me know if you have good tips that I didn’t mention or good books about journaling.
I’d be super happy to see you again here.
